Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. Hei. 07-186781 discloses a passenger protecting apparatus for vehicles provided with an airbag. According to this publication, the passenger protecting apparatus is operated to attenuate a shock applied to a passenger by expanding the side and front airbag modules installed at positions adjacent to both side and front of the passenger by a gas inflator activated when the vehicle is in a collision. In this case, the gas inflator is actuated to retard impact to be applied to the passenger in a direction of a vehicle's collision.
The conventional passenger protecting apparatus is designed such that one end of an airbag door formed on the dashboard is hinged to the dashboard by a plastic sheet or a metal plate. In this case, when the vehicle is in a collision, the airbag door is opened by the expansion force of the airbag, and simultaneously detached from the dashboard, and then may project toward the passenger. Or, the airbag door is incompletely opened at an acute angle due to the strength of the plastic sheet or the metal plate. Therefore, the conventional passenger protecting apparatus has a problem that a passenger who does not wear a safety belt may impact against and injured by the incompletely opened airbag door while leaning forward in the vehicle, in the event of a collision.